Is religion the greatest work of fiction ever accomplished by man?

If I am to believe what I have been led to believe so far then it is indeed a huge piece of fiction. I have prayed in my youth because i was raised as a Roman Catholic. To all those prayers I am still waiting for an answer so even if he is real then correspondence isn't one of his strong points. I have lost good friends and family in the most horrific of ways and again I prayed so desperately that he would let them pull through, not for my sake as that would be sinful. I prayed not on my own behalf although I have led a good and honest life. I prayed for the beautiful, wonderful and magnetic people they were, and to be saved for who they were, but to no avail. As if to add insult to injury when a prayer has been overlooked, my best friends murder at the hands of a steroid fuelled coke addict was not the only unforgivable wrong. The man who murdered him actually handed himself in to the police. He was placed on remand until trial which took six months. I have to wonder where God was when the trial took place considering he sees all. That trial was a mockery to my friends life, and to his Mother and brothers and sisters, to all of us. The man who committed this brutal act had admitted what his crime was at the earliest opportunity so we expected some remission of sentence. On the 2nd day of the trial though we all went home in tears and we knew it was going the wrong way. Unfortunately for my Mate whom I still miss, he had an aneurysm on his brain. This means that it could have burst at any time and he was a virtual ticking time bomb. My mate never woke up from the beating that thug dished out and he was in a coma and on life support for three days but there was no brain activity so his Mum had to do the only thing she could for him, let him go. After going through all that this very decent and hard working woman had to watch her son's killer walk free from prison on a technicality. Why not even a sentence for manslaughter? He was only 28 when his life was ended. So much potential and so much future all ended in one moment. We all prayed and we all wasted our time. I see this blind faith everywhere I look and it fills me with both wonderment and sadness. The wonder is that niggling doubt of human curiosity that you might actually be on to something I overlooked until I realise there is nothing I overlooked. I didn't get any answers because there was nobody there to answer me. The sadness I feel is for the memory of how i felt when I was naive enough to believe that God was all powerful and would deliver us all into salvation. Between protecting the meek and smiting wrongdoers I suppose he may have overlooked my little problems but that just seems an inconceivable notion for one with the status of god. The only message I get from the churches is that god seems to like money. Lots and lots and lots of money. Money for the church roof is a big one, thanks to bad weather. Who controls the weather? God! You would think he would want to save his parishioners some money wouldn't you? I don't want big scriptures pasted from google and copied below as answers. I have had to give this serious thought and I am not wanting to be preached at. I don't mind debate but not judgement for how I perceive there to be a distinct lack of reality within religion and it's core beliefs